


Space

by less_than_happyy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic, Relationship(s), Supportive partner, Unwanted Advancements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5630563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/less_than_happyy/pseuds/less_than_happyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sex is fun.</p>
<p>He thinks. He says to himself. He decides to believe. He spends too much time desperately convincing himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Space

**Author's Note:**

> Made a joke a few nights ago to my partner about a certain character being ace, and then it spiraled around in my head for a few hours, and became this, which is nothing like my original joke. At all. I actually wrote out the original joke in it's own document, and that fic is like, 300 words about. Might post it. Anyways. Nothing bad ever actually happens in this, but it's exploring some of the negative thought processes one might have around sex, especially when you're asexual, so be prepared for that. I hope you like it.

It was a joke between him and Chewie. How many people would come on to him. How many people would want him. Try and have him. And he, of course, played along at first; slow flirtatious responses just often enough to keep up the allure of desire. On longer trips, the occasional fleeting kiss, eyes always on the clock. Don't say anything, don't do anything, the game was over. Give too much, imply too much, and he found himself in the uncomfortable situation of people actually trying to get to him.

Han still remembered when he was young and trapped on Corellia, and watched people shift into sexualities he didn't understand. At the time, he didn't want to, he just wanted it to go back to the way it had been. Before people wanted him and he was expected to want them back. Or at least want. Want somebody.

Within a year of this awakening, he does. Sort of. Ze wanted him, and ze was nice, and his ma grinned at him whenever ze was around, and this _had_ to be what it's like. He had just been a little late.

He ultimately decided he was still a little out of the loop when ze got frustrated that they hadn't gotten in bed already; in the course of their four month relationship it hadn't even crossed his mind.

The sex is fun.

He thinks. He says to himself. He decides to believe. He spends too much time desperately convincing himself. Well. It's not _not_ fun, he's just distracted the entire time by everything but zir. Hands cradling sensitive patches of skin that should be moving parts of a ship with as much ease. Mouths leaving awkwardly damp trails and he's behind on the loan for the small ship that was finally, _finally_ , going to get him off this planet. They could be swimming or dancing or running or just talking.

His mind is annoyingly distracted with the pleasant high of his climax, unable to focus on anything - not even on zir as ze continued to touch him and move over him - through the grating haze.

Later, when he brought it up to zir - long after they've separated, and he's visiting Corellia on a whim and entirely surprised to bump into zir - ze asked him if it was about gender: his own or zir's. He shook his head.

Just not the right person.

But there's never a right person. He tries one night stands full of quick touches and distractions with a variety of bodies and genders and species and it _can_ be fun. Sometimes. But it's not the experience he hears about. Watches people have with him. Straining. Needing. It's almost baffling, like he's immune to something, and he doesn't comprehend it at all. He's just missing something.

He figured that had to be love - as stupid and cringe worthy as that sounded to him - but he was always too flighty to pursue the people he thought maybe he could have that bond with.

At some point he jokingly mentioned to Chewie that sex isn’t really his thing. Hence, the game.

And then Luke. Luke is like a breath of fresh air. Han had never spent this much time with somebody he had a spark with and he went back and forth about whether or not Luke felt it too. Sometimes, in lazy moments their hands drift too close to each other. They linger hugs and touches for heart wrenching moments too long. But then they speed up and reality dictates a different interpretation of their touch starved desires.

Leia sometimes looks at him like she knows.

He shrugs off what she could possibly know about all of this that he doesn't. Until she sits him down one day with a curious, "You and Luke haven't slept with each other."

Han doesn't know what to say to that, and instead chokes out, "And you think we should?"

Her smiles were always lazy creatures, either full of or void of amusement. "Didn't say that," she simply replied, and his skin crawled.

"Look," he said, with an almost glare that he really couldn’t muster any energy behind, "I don't want to sleep with your brother."

Her smile shifts just barely. Like again, she _knows_. "But you could still be with him," she says entirely logically, and he knit his brow, not sure what to say. She looked at him, and then tipped her head to the side with a blink. "But of course you must know that already," she said, pushing for the first time in the conversation, for an actual answer, and he's not even sure what the question is.

"I..." he trailed off, not sure what to say, and she looks at him, genuinely startled as if she can't believe he doesn't know. Doesn't know what, he's unsure of. Maybe he does know. Maybe he's missing something in this conversation and it'll all become clear in a moment.

"Han," she says gentle, as if to not scare him away, "you can have love without sex." It's an oddly simple statement - the reverse of one he's heard many a time, especially growing up on Corellia - but it's just enough to knock his perception off kilter.

"Well of course I know that," he snapped, but didn't believe the words he was saying. Did he know that? Did he believe that? He wanted the look on her face - it was so soft, not pity, but _care_ \- to go away. Leave him be.

"Have you ever heard the word asexual?" she asks, and he shakes his head, almost disbelieving he's having this conversation. If it's possible, her look softens even more. "It just means you aren’t sexually attracted to people. Often, asexuals don't experience a desire to have sex, either," she says, and he feels like he's drowning in missing pages that were torn out of his manual on life that everybody else got to keep.

"So?" he spits out instead. "Why should I care about some word?"

She shrugged and said, "As princess I learned a lot of words. Best to know all the different fluctuations of my people. It would be bad if I treated one badly." It's almost like an invitation to learn, and he runs from it. He doesn't care. He _doesn't_ care. He can't care. It's been too long.

But later - weeks later, when the conversation has all but faded from his mind, and he's enjoying a break in the daily hustle and bustle that's life, Luke tinkering with something a few feet away - the word flicks through his mind like a brilliant curse. Asexual.

He had to be the only Corellian that thought that way. There was no other way. It had to be a mistake. He had to be a mistake.

As if on cue Luke looks up from what he's doing and smiles at him and Han tries to think about wanting Luke in his bed with no clothes and all the time in the world; just movement and each other and -

… He _doesn't_ , and that makes him sick to his stomach.

It becomes some sort of repetitive torture: he distracts his mind with everything he's supposed to want, and he thinks that Luke can tell. He doesn't want to think about Luke like that. And he sure as hell doesn't want Luke to know he is. But he's supposed to, right?

It's a looping thought pattern and it's eating him away.

But sometimes, just sometimes, he can forget about everything, and he’s certain in those moments that Luke is looking at him like he means too much. Not the way the resistance does – perfect war hero that would give his life for the resistance and took care of his people dripping in fewer medals than everybody said he deserved – but like he’s the sun.

Han wanted to back out but he can’t pull away, can’t remove himself from Luke’s orbit, because if anybody was going to fit that metaphor, it’s Luke. Everybody loves Luke. Luke’s perfect. Luke is golden and radiant and –

The nightmares Luke has, that Han should’ve known he was having, spiral through Luke’s life like a sandstorm. He had had a proclivity for falling asleep in strange places – Han can still remember the first time Luke slipped away in his co-pilot seat and he had just _smiled_ about it like an idiotic prepubescent teenager – so when that stopped happening, Han should’ve noticed. But he’s too caught up in his mind torture of wanting and doesn’t until he wakes Luke up from screaming where he’d fallen asleep on the Falcons array of seats. “Luke,” he shouted over him, wary of getting too close to his struggling. His eyes flew open and his screams turned into gasping.  For a moment, Han just watched him. He wasn’t a comfort giver. He’d never been good at that. Leia claimed otherwise, once. Said he held together the people he cared about and Han had flippantly told her off. “Luke,” he said more gently, and moved closer to him, before resting by his side.

Luke leaned into him slowly calming his breaths and they didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to be said. But Han’s mind was whirring. Overthinking. He tried to shut it down, turn it off, to no avail, and instead focused on the pinpoints of connection between them. He and Luke had always been physically comfortable with each other. Even comforts like this, while strange for Han in general, weren’t unheard of between him and Luke. Or he and Leia, for that matter. He countered his minds spiraling with that. That he would give this comfort to Leia if she needed it.

The shift against him was immediately noticeable. He looked at Luke who had returned to a drowsy state of existence, who was looking up at him like… like… Luke leaned towards him, and Han tried not to freeze entirely, but their faces were far too close – before Luke buried his face into Han’s neck. “Thank you,” Luke murmured against his skin. Han moved and ruffled a hand through Luke’s hair and held him closer for just a moment before he let his hand sink back to his lap where Luke caught it with his own.

“No problem,” Han replied, keeping his voice as natural as possible. And Luke just leaned in slightly further and pressed a soft kiss to his jaw that made Han’s breath catch in his throat, before relaxing into a more comfortable position. Han felt like a live wire, and wanted to run as far away from this as possible.

“Stay,” Luke said into his shoulder, voice raw and hand tightening just a margin on Han’s, and Han nodded, not sure his voice would say yes.

Luke fell asleep, and soon after, Han did too. He didn’t mean to. He didn’t really want to. But he woke to him and Luke having slumped over some, Han leaning into the wall with Luke sprawled across the seats and him, arms tangled together, and Han almost feels scared. But he doesn’t _get_ scared. He’s Han Solo.

After a quiet moment of collection, he separated himself from Luke, and then draped his jacket over Luke’s shoulders to keep him warm.

He spent the rest of Luke’s sleep in close quarters; tinkering with this and that, making sure that Luke didn’t have more nightmares. And Han knew that something in their balance had shifted.

Touching is no longer _just touching_. It means something, Han thinks. Means something twisted up with smiles and grins and looks that Han purposely doesn’t decipher. And he’s not running from this. He’s just not embracing it either. But looks seem more forward. They spend the same amount of time together, perhaps a little more than they used to, but some of it is just them being together. Coexisting in a way they had never done before.

Maybe they never had done it before because of the war. And even caught up in the aftermath – the reestablishment of a republic, Luke’s search for the Force sensitive, the smaller battles they fought against the dying empire – they had more time and space from all of that. More energy to focus towards other things.

Luke’s nightmares come less often when they spend more time together. Han can tell without Luke saying anything about it. Because he looks more rested and regains a little of his sharp mouth. They don’t usually sleep together, but nearby: both somewhere on the Falcon, or in different parts of the same room, neighboring beds in large barracks.

They’re practically living together, Han realizes, and that scares the shit out of him. Coexisting shifting into cohabitating like some strange family unit that had skipped explaining what feelings were and just went straight into being in each other’s lives. On Corellia, if they simply added sex to what they were doing, it’d be considered perfectly normal. Even living with a short term partner for a few weeks or months was _normal_ there. But Han wasn’t normal and this wasn’t normal, let alone talked about.

Leia watched them with her ever knowing looks and Han wanted to know what all she sees because he isn’t sure.

So of course he tells Luke that he’s thinking about getting a small shack somewhere to hole up every once and a while so that he can have somewhere to sleep that isn’t still caught up in everything. Somewhere to swim. To get some distance from the resistance. To breathe fresh air. To have a home base that isn’t just the Falcon. Because the Falcon will always be his home, but maybe, having a place that isn’t always floating through space or the resistance base is a better plan for home, and before he can stop himself he adds, “You’d always be welcome. Could even make it your home base if you wanted.”

Luke smiled at him, radiant as always, and said, “If you find a place, that’d be wonderful.”

Han grinned back, but could feel the panic suddenly wanting to sweep over him because what if – what if Luke _expects_ something of him. Of this. Of whatever it is that they’re _not doing_.

Han finds a place – a small place, little more than a shack – in the middle of the woods on Corellia. He’s not quite sure what draws him back, especially since it’s so far away from everybody. No large families. No extended entanglements. Not the Corellian way. Just a small space: a loft for him with a beautiful lake view from his bed, kitchen and dining unit, a mix of an office or relaxing space, a room with a second bed – _for Luke_ – and a porch that would easily support Chewie’s hammock whenever he stayed with him.

He doesn’t tell Luke about it immediately even though he wants to.

He’s worried about the space the cohabitation of them will make. About Luke’s expectations. About having separate rooms. He doesn’t want to have sex with Luke, even as his brain still spirals down that lane trying to figure out why he would want to, why anybody would _want_ to and an explanation of the lack of sensation still bristles at the back of his mind. And he doesn’t want Luke to question why he never has anybody on his arms, romantic or sexual because he’s head over –

He always stopped that line of thought. Luke is his best friend. Even if they look at each other like that’s the farthest thing from the truth. The truth, Han thinks, is a lot bigger than that.

But he said that it could be Luke’s home base, and ends up telling Luke right when he knows that Luke is about to be off for what is supposed to be a short diplomatic meeting with some ruler who believes that they’re Force sensitive. Han waited for Luke to show up and either be disappointed or surprised.

The look on Luke’s face as Han showed him around is incredible. Wondering. Excited. And the spark in his eyes when he gets to see his room, looks at the few things – a small desk, small bookshelf, small dresser – Han has procured for him is incredible.

They walk through the trees and along the beach front quietly and their hands keep brushing and Han doesn’t know when physical contact started scaring him so much.

No. He’s Han Solo. He doesn’t get scared. He doesn’t.

They have a few days together, before Han has to take off and it’s almost natural. Like they could actually exist just like this. A barrier between them, but safe.

Luke studies him as they lounge on the couch next to each other the evening before Han has to leave, Han reading a manual for an upgrade he’s been thinking of giving the Falcon, Luke no longer writing some diplomatic letter, and says, “Thank you.” Han doesn’t know how to respond. For a moment, they just watched each other before Han pulled Luke into a hug, not giving himself time to question what he’s doing.

“Of course,” he said back, and there are so many words in his mouth that he wants to say, and none of them really _mean_ anything. He starts to pull away, but Luke’s arms moved up, gently sliding around his neck. Not a trap, just presence, and Han finds his mind tumbling down that path again. What if Luke _wants_ because Han doesn’t and he thinks – he thinks he could for Luke. He’s had sex with less savory people for less savory reasons and enjoyed it _enough_ , so Luke would have to be better because he loves him.

But that’s exactly it. He loves him even as another part of his mind screams that he doesn’t – he _can’t_ – and it’s because he loves him that he really, _really_ , doesn’t want to. With somebody else, it’d be a goal of a high enough high that he didn’t even want in the first place that the bad became worth it. With Luke, that lie would tear him apart. With Luke, he didn’t know if he could force himself into that situation like he had done in the past. He didn’t want to.

Luke ducked his head down and curled into Han, head resting neatly beneath his chin, and Han let out a relieved breath of air a moment too early.

“Your heart is pounding,” Luke said, and he sounded worried, like he hoped that he hadn’t overstepped some boundary in this weird friendship that was becoming less and less friendly. Han swallowed searching for an explanation other than fear.

“You have that effect on me,” he settled on, and as Luke pulled up to look at him and Han glanced away, he knew it fell flat. That he hadn’t stepped past Luke’s knowledge of him. Of his inflections. He swallowed again, and Luke looked worried, and started to pull back.

“I –”

“No,” Han said quickly, hands tightening where they’d loosely ended up on Luke’s hips. “It’s not – you’re not –” he tries, but he doesn’t know what to say, just that he needs to say _something_ and that word floated through his mind again. Asexual. Han shoved it away as his face heated up. “You’re fine,” he said, “this is fine.”

Luke cocked his head to the side, brows knitting and Han knew that he still hadn’t said the right thing. “I don’t want this to just be fine,” Luke said and Han wanted to run, run, run away from Luke’s knowing eyes and concerned look and kissable lips.

And Han _does_ want to kiss him. He’s certain of that. He just doesn’t want –

“I didn’t mean –” he tried before letting out a forced breath, a fraction away from irritated with his inability to understand or explain any of this. Luke leaned back and Han hates it. Hates that he was _so close_ to Luke and then screwed it up. His fault.

“What is it, Han?” Luke asked and Han shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said, and Luke looked like he didn’t believe that. “Nothing that I can explain right now,” he amended, which seemed to better appease Luke, but he still looked at odds. Han reached out and Luke leaned into the touch and then into Han, and they slept like that; tangled together on a couch that really hadn’t been designed to sleep on with too many words stuck in Han’s throat and a quiet acceptance radiating off of Luke. Like always.

In the morning, Han impulsively kissed Luke goodbye as he was headed out. A press of lips with a hint of a smile and the gentle touch of a hand reaching out for him, but stopping because Luke knew he had to get going.

When he bumps into Leia on the base – which isn’t unexpected but isn’t actually planned – he grabbed her arm and she looked at him, surprised, and then shook him off with a snipped, “What do you want?” And he’s not sure, but he needs – he needs to be able to explain. And it feels foolish in his body to have to ask but he has to. What else could he do?

“You offered to teach me about,” he swallowed, looking at her imploringly, _don’t make me say it, don’t make me admit I need help_ , “different sexualities,” he finished, quietly. And he’s ashamed, and it’s stupid, and she just blinks at him, as if this wasn’t a turn of events she had been expecting. He hadn’t been expecting it, that’s for sure.

They talk later for hours. About how various systems have their biases, and then, proceed with either over defining or under defining from there. How the cruder systems he was familiar with as a smuggler ignored gender and sold sex without words. How on Alderaan, she’d grown up with a very strict knowledge of words and definitions and how people fit them, as opposed to when she visited Naboo, and they’d had the words, but with a fluidity to them. Like applicable after thoughts once you’d already ended up in the situation. And then she pointed out that Corellia barely used the words at all, considering themselves, _sexually liberated_. He’d never heard it phrased that way specifically, but it rang true enough. Regardless of gender or sex or species, having sex was a given. They were well educated on the matter of sex and protection and consent. To the point, the first time he’d heard the words that he figured a lot of Corellian’s fell under – bisexual, pansexual, polysexual – that he’d already left Corellia.

They talked about sex and consent. They didn’t talk about the intricacies of attraction. Or the validity of not wanting sex. Asexual, as far as he could tell, wasn’t a concept on Corellia. But he’d never been overly attached to those people, even if he felt weirdly drawn to his home planet. Maybe there were Corellian’s like him. Not that he _was_ asexual. It was just a plausibility. A probability. Something to mull over in the back of his mind.

He’s relieved that she doesn’t tease him about it. Doesn’t even really seem that surprised that he doesn’t know a lot of the words already.

Part way though his trip, Luke showed up on a trip of his own. And as always, they gravitated towards each other. And this time, in their quiet space, Han isn’t panicking. He’s thinking. Thinking about Luke and about them and about what they’re doing. What they’re moving towards.

Luke kisses him, soft and reassuring one night, and it lasts for what feels like hours, just the gentle connection of skin. Lips brushing and pulling at each other. Hands trailing warmth across each other. It’s _incredible._ Han’s never done _this_ before. Never spiraled down warm trails of nothingness with no desire for an end result and he hopes that Luke enjoys it as much as he does.

Because what if he doesn’t? What if he wants more? The _more_ that Han was becoming more and more certain that he didn’t want to give.

They keep separating and meeting back up – at the resistance base, the house, the Falcon – and the nights sometimes shift into these long spells of gentle touch with nowhere to go, sometimes ending in the same bed, and sometimes shifting to their own spaces, and Han has _never_ been so entirely into somebody.

And then it _does_ escalate, and he doesn’t know how to stop it. He’d just been teasing, and Luke had that mouth on him, and the jokes had leaned towards being dirty, and the kisses had started hard, and they’d pressed too much and Han felt the string through the back of his mind as they continued to move in _that direction_ like clockwork and he doesn’t want this but it’s too late he’d already asked for this. If not now, it was going to happen later. If not later, Luke was going to get fed up with it not happening. Han was pinned in too many ways.

Luke’s lips trailed down his chin and across his throat and stopped over his pulse that Han could feel hammering away. And as Luke looked up at him, he tried to figure out how to explain it. Link it to his arousal or to something. “What is it?” Luke asked him, winded, and Han felt all of his words halt in his mouth, his tongue heavy with everything he wanted to say. Everything he didn’t want to do.

“I don’t –” he started, but cut himself off and looked away because he _couldn’t say that_. Not that. Luke couldn’t know.

Luke pulled back and Han felt like curling into a ball and falling apart. He had almost – they had almost – he didn’t – he wanted – “We don’t have to,” Luke said, adjusting his clothes. Han wanted to grab the phrase like a life line. But he couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed out, and shifted up and away from Luke, looking elsewhere as he perched briefly on the edge of Luke’s bed in their house, trying to find the will to stay. “I’ll be back,” he said instead.

And then he was up and out of the room, running away like a coward, Luke’s eyes singeing hot spots on his shoulders.

Once he made his way onto the Falcon, he does curl up on the small cot of a bed that he had used so often throughout his life, pressed his hands into his hair, held on too tightly, and wished Chewie were there. Tries to think of what Chewie would say.

Sometimes, the game they played went south. He gave too much to a passenger with too much time left, or flew a flirtatious guest more than once, and it would happen. The moment that they actually pressed him for sex. And he’d always have to talk his way out of that, panic lingering behind his calm and cool words he hoped that they couldn’t see behind. Afterwards, Chewie gave him a hard time, saying someday, he’d lose the game. The joke. Whatever it was. But there was the one time, the person kept pressing, and Han had been cornered, and then Chewie had swept in and shoved her away with an angry howl and choice words that Han knew she couldn’t understand. Han hardly left the cockpit the rest of the flight, and didn’t really relax ‘til she was off his ship.

And Chewie had looked at him for a moment, and then patted his shoulder and simply said sorry, and Han had broken down.

He hadn’t expected it. The sob that caught in his throat. The panic that had still been swirling through his gut. It hit him as hard as every shot he’d ever taken. He curled up in his cockpit seat and cried and was mortified that Chewie was there, that he was breaking down at all, but he couldn’t quite care as he fell apart and held onto himself to try and keep it together.

When he’d ended up at just trembling, Chewie had brought him his favourite meal. They never talked about it, but he knew that Chewie kept a closer eye on him in their game. Set limits. Actually called Han out when he thought Han was giving too much. Made sure he knew that things could go awry.

Things hadn’t gone awry since then. Until now. Until this.

He curled further into himself and _didn’t cry_ because he was Han Solo, and he didn’t cry.

When he walked back into the house the next morning Luke all but threw himself at Han and hugged him before the front door was even fully shut. Han hugged back. “I’m sorry,” Luke said into his shoulder and Han shook his head.

“Whatever for?” Han asked, and Luke pulled away enough to look at him and Han felt like he was being looked through.

“Han,” he said softly, a hand gently gliding over his cheek, along the ridge beneath his eyes that were still puffy from moisture. Han wondered, for not the first time, how many of his emotions Luke was privy to because of the Force. How much Luke just knew, or if Han was really that much of an open book. “You were upset,” Luke settled on, hand resting feather light against Han’s neck.

He wanted to joke. Say, _Who, me? Upset? Never_. Wanted to swindle his way out of this conversation like he had so many other times.

But this was Luke, and he liked Luke too much, so the words didn’t come out. He shut his eyes, unreasonably tired for no explainable reason, and leaned his face into Luke’s shoulder.

He always gave Luke the comfort he needed. A home when he didn’t have one. Contact after a nightmare. Space when he needed it. Travel when he needed to be _somewhere_. Other than this relationship that seemed to have come out of nowhere even though Han had watched it being built for years, Han didn’t ask him for much back. Especially not comfort.

He breathed in and out.

“On Corellia,” he started, but stopped. He needed to say, but didn’t know how to say it. How to explain it all. Because he was all but certain that he was asexual, but the word felt like it lacked a definition without the context of everything. Of not having that word. Of Leia.

Luke maneuvered them to the small bed that they would’ve shared the previous night with all the extended meanings of _sleeping together_ if Han had just pushed away all of this nonsense about attraction and lack thereof. But of course, he hadn’t. Luke’s hand traveled gently over his back and Han tried to think about how to piece words together. He was a talker, but he had never been all that good at talking about himself. All of his important words getting dropped as jokes and backhanded secrets and in busy moments where they were all but lost.

“I don’t,” he started, and swallowed, and wondered if this is why Corellia didn’t talk about this aspect of existence. Because talking about it was _hard_ in a way that just proposing sex wasn’t. “I don’t want to have sex with you,” he forced out of his mouth, and hated the silence that followed, and needed to fill it up. “On Corellia we don’t have a word for that. So I just – for a long time I assumed other things were that desire. Leia was the first one who talked to me about any of the actual words behind any of it. She said the word is – is asexual. And I like you so much Luke,” the words tumbled out of his mouth as he pressed himself into Luke’s side, “I need you so much, but I don’t want to fuck you. And sometimes I play this self-deprecating game with myself where I try and convince myself that I do. Set up situations or create fantasies or back myself into corners and I don’t want _any_ of that I just want you.” His hands were in tight balls, holding on desperately to nothingness because he had just disappointed Luke. Because Luke wanted _him_ and he couldn’t do that.

“Han,” Luke breathed out, a hand shifting to his chin and make him look at him. “I – I want to have sex with you. I’m not going to lie.” Han closed his eyes trying to push away the dread because this either meant that Luke was going to push him away or ask and Han couldn’t say no to Luke. Not to Luke. “But if you _don’t_ want to have sex with me – if you _ever_ don’t want to do something – I will _never_ make you. If you never want to have sex, then we never will. I’m not going to pressure you into that. Ever.”

A breath escaped him that he hadn’t realized he was holding, his eyes opening to meet the look of care and compassion that Luke was giving him, and he pressed a short kiss to Luke’s lips. “Thank you,” he breathed, and it means _so much_ , he’s surprised.

“Though, I should probably go and catch up on some missing terminology with Leia,” Luke said after a moment, and Han chuckled.

“She’ll see straight through us if you do.”

Luke touched their noses together and it’s the most childlike thing Han thinks they’ve ever done and it makes bubbles pour through his slowly relaxing body. “Has there ever been a time when she hasn’t been able to see right through us?” Luke asked, and Han grinned.

“She’s smart… for a princess.”

Han kept waiting for Luke to take it back. After long nights spiraled together with bare skin and touching and lips or short moments in corners grasping for closeness before one of them has to go, and he _doesn’t_. He doesn’t ever. Doesn’t hint at it. Doesn’t ask. Doesn’t pressure him into situations he doesn’t want. Doesn’t require that they always share a bed. And Han is stuck between awed and mystified. But it’s Luke, his mind settled on. Luke had always known him through and through, and always known what he needed and wanted, and had always, _always_ , left space for that.

He really shouldn’t be surprised.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there you go. I wonder how many people started reading this with the assumption that Luke was going to be ace. But I say pfft to that, I do. Thanks for reading and spending time on this. I'm really proud of it, and happy with the way it turned out. Leave comments maybe? It'd make my day. Kind of amused that a new Star Wars movie comes out, and the first fanfic I write after that is based off the original trilogy. Oh well. Also, the title was not actually originally supposed to be a pun. That was an accident. :)  
> Anyhoo. Have a wonderful new year! <3


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